Economic
Times: New Delhi: Thursday, 16 April 2015.
The
provisions of Medical Council of India to protect confidentiality in patients'
records cannot override statutes of Right to Information Act, Central
Information Commission has held.
Information
Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu held that after RTI Act has come into being, any
rules which are not in conformity with the disclosure norms will be overridden
by the transparency law.
He said the
decision to disclose records of a patient will be taken keeping in mind the
provisions of the Right to Information Act.
"The
confidentiality required to be maintained in the medical records of a patient
including a convict considering the regulations framed by the Medical Council
of India cannot override the provisions of the Right to Information Act,"
Acharyulu said while ordering disclosure of records of mental health of a
person whose wife had demanded it.
She had
alleged that she was kept in dark about the mental condition of her husband who
used to beat her after marriage because of his psychological condition.
The applicant
had demanded from Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences the medical
records of her husband who was being treated there but the Institute refused it
citing confidentiality clause in such records.
"In such
cases, a discretion has been conferred on the concerned public information officer
to make available information, if satisfied, that the larger public interest
justified the disclosure," he said.
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